Friday, March 7, 2014
10 Most Bizarre Galaxies In The Universe
Everyone has seen pictures of galaxies in their elementary school science books, but what you might not know is that not all galaxies are created equal. In fact, some of them are downright bizarre-looking. While the Milky Way may look pristine and almost flawless, the following galaxies are the poor, snaggle-toothed children of the cosmos.
10Hoag’s Object
credit: NASA
Hoag’s Object almost looks like two distinct galaxies, with its bright yellow cluster of stars at the center and a blue ring of stars separated from the cluster by a large void of space. But no, this is one galaxy, much the same way Saturn is one planet and not a planet with a ring-shaped planet around it.
When tasked with solving the problem of how Hoag’s object was formed, science came up with a resounding “what?” In the end, they just labeled it as a type of ring galaxy and moved on. Want an example of another galaxy of this type? Look just inside the top end of the ring. There’s one off in the distance, which is bizarre, since these kinds of galaxies are pretty rare.
9Arp 87
Photo credit: NASA
Arp 87 is what you get when two galaxies enter into a steel cage match—and only one leaves. Galactic collisions are actually pretty common and sometimes result in a lot of near misses, like what is going on here.
These two galaxies almost ran into one another a few billion years ago and gravity has strung out material between the two as they moved apart. It’s likely that they’ll sweep back toward one another in a series of near misses until they eventually merge into one big galaxy. For now, they remain tethered together by a thin stream of stars, gas, and dust particles, like enormous intergalactic bolas, which can only mean one thing: space Incas.
8Antennae Galaxies
Photo credit: NASA
Here, we have another pair of galaxies devouring one another, but much farther along in the process. The only way you can tell there used to be two galaxies here is by the yellow clusters of stars at either end—these used to be the galactic centers. Now one giant, amorphous blob, these galaxies are slowly chugging toward a state of equilibrium that with result in the new galaxy’s final shape.
Most of the currently existing star clusters in this galactic pair will part ways before the new galaxy is totally formed—only the largest clusters will survive the merger. Perhaps the most interesting thing we can learn from observing this process is what will happen when the Milky Way inevitably merges with the nearby Andromeda galaxy, which is headed in our direction. Don’t worry, though: It won’t be for a few billion years.
7Sombrero Galaxy
Photo credit: NASA
The Sombrero Galaxy, unsurprisingly, bears a striking resemblance to the hat of the same name. It has a large bulge in the center where some imaginary cosmic giant’s head might go and a broad, sweeping “brim.”
When we look at the bulge a bit closer, you can see that it’s actually made up of several different clusters of stars, rather than just one big one. The brim is pretty strange, too: Its intricate detail is another one of those things about space that makes science scratch its head. We’re not sure how rings like this were able to form. It’s also highly likely that the heart of the Sombrero Galaxy harbors a massive black hole.
6Centaurus A
Photo credit: ESO
To the untrained eye, it might be difficult to distinguish Centaurus A as anything remarkable, but when you take a closer look, there’s something peculiar going on here. Centaurus A is large by galaxy standards, and large galaxies often come in one of two flavors: spiral and elliptical. But when astronomers took a look at this galaxy using radio imaging to peer through the veil of dust, they revealed a spiral hidden underneath. This is quite odd, since galaxies are generally one or the other. It is the only elliptical galaxy we’ve ever found that has spiral arms. The theory is that Centaurus A absorbed a spiral galaxy some millions of years ago, but such mergers don’t often—or ever, really—leave the spiral arms intact, so we have no clue what is happening here.
Video: Divergent
DIVERGENT is a thrilling action-adventure film set in a world where
people are divided into distinct factions based on human virtues. Tris
Prior (Shailene Woodley) is warned she is Divergent and will never
fit into any one group. When she discovers a conspiracy by a faction
leader (Kate Winslet)to destroy all Divergents, Tris must learn to trust
in the mysterious Four (Theo James) and together they must find out
what makes being Divergent so dangerous before it's too late.
Based on the best-selling book series by Veronica Roth.
Sounds a lot like how government and media treat the Tea Party...
Midnight Movies: Open Source Nuclear Fusion
Deep in the woods of Virginia, a retired engineer makes his own guns, ammo - and nuclear fusion reactors.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
The Badass of the Week.
Chuck Yeager
Chuck Yeager's adventure in badassitude started in 1941 when he got sick of the Axis powers' bullshit and enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces as an aircraft mechanic. Fixing planes and tightening nuts quickly got boring for Yeager, probably because he didn't have to spend every waking hour warding off the ominous Black Hand of Death, so he transferred to aviation and became a fighter pilot instead. On just his eighth combat mission Yeager's P-51 was shot down over the French countryside, but he didn't even give a crap. Chuck joined up with the French Resistance, helped them make some bombs to throw at the Nazis, and eventually escaped back to England. Oh yeah, and he won the Bronze Star for throwing a seriously-wounded American pilot over his shoulder and carrying this dude across the motherfucking Pyrenees Mountains.
Getting shot down by the fucking Krauts only served to get Chuck Yeager really really ripshit pissed off, and he immediately went back and became one of the war's few "Aces in a Day", blasting the shit out of five German Me-109s in just a couple of hours. Not long after that he won the Distinguished Flying Cross for being one of the first Americans to ever take down a badass Nazi Me-262 jet fighter. During the war, he recorded 13 official aircraft kills over the course of 61 missions, and by the time he was sent back home he had already achieved the rank of Captain.
But shit was just getting started for Chuck Yeager in terms of limitless badassitude and pushing-it-to-the-limit-ness. His experience as both a mechanic and a badass fucking fighter pilot got him attached to the Aeronautical Systems Flight Test Division back in the States, where his chief duty was to test-fly repaired aircraft to make sure they were airworthy - an exercise that was basically one step removed from playing Russian Roulette with an automatic pistol. During his tenure flying around in a bunch of "hopefully functional" airplanes, Yeager so greatly impressed his superiors with his amazing ability to not die in a giant flaming inferno that he was selected to test-fly the new rocket-powered experimental Bell X-1 prototype aircraft. This was a pretty big deal, since he was chosen from a field of 125 senior pilots with buttloads of flying experience, and he definitely lived up to the task. Even though he had broken two ribs the day before and was in so much pain that he could barely get the cockpit hatch closed, Chuck Yeager sat behind the controls of this giant flying explosion and prepared to do what no man had ever done before - break the sound barrier. On 14 October 1947 Yeager went completely balls-out full-throttle, hitting Mach 1.07 and becoming the
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